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Argentina to Declare National Day of Mourning to Honor Israeli-Argentine Bibas Children Killed in Hamas Captivity
Armed Palestinian carry one of the four coffins during the handover of the bodies of four Israeli hostages to the Red Cross in Khan Yunis. Photo: Abed Rahim Khatib/dpa via Reuters Connect
Argentina is set to declare a national day of mourning for the brothers Ariel and Kfir Bibas, the two young children with dual Israeli-Argentine citizenship whose dead bodies were returned to Israel on Thursday by Hamas terrorists who kidnapped them a year and a half ago.
Also returned to Israel were the dead bodies of their mother, Shiri Bibas, 32, and fellow Hamas hostage and Israeli citizen Oded Lifshitz, 84. Ariel was 5 years old and Kfir was 2 at their time of death. They are Argentinian by way of their father, Yarden Bibas, who was also abducted during the Hamas-led invasion of southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, before being freed earlier this month as part of the Gaza ceasefire deal.
Kfir was abducted when he was 9 months old, making him the youngest hostage kidnapped by terrorists from Israel during the Oct. 7 massacre and the youngest to have been killed.
“I am informed by the government that they will wait for official information on the DNA results of the bodies and that, if confirmed, Argentina will then declare a National Day of Mourning in their honor, ” Sabrina Ajmeche, president of the Argentine Commission for Human Rights, said Wednesday on X.
In a separate post announcing Argentine President Javier Milei’s decision to declare a day of national mourning for the Bibas children, she said, “Thank you, President, for your commitment to democracy, to freedom, to Western values and to the fight against terrorism.”
“Kfir and Ariel were both Argentine citizens,” she added. “Two Argentine babies killed by Hamas terrorism. I hope that after this I never have to hear again that what happens in Israel and Gaza is not our business, or that of all Argentines.”
Milei, who won Argentina’s November 2023 presidential election, has publicly spoken about his support for Israel and Judaism, both of which were central components in his presidential campaign. During his visit to the Jewish state in February 2024 – his first international trip since taking office – he visited Kibbutz Nir Oz in the Negev, where the Bibas family and Lifshitz were abducted. Nearly 25 percent of Nir Oz’s residents were either murdered or kidnapped during the Oct. 7, 2023, massacre orchestrated by Hamas. Milei said at the time that he was traveling to Israel to “express my support against the attacks by the terrorist group Hamas.” Milei is also working to designate Hamas as a terrorist organization in Argentina.
Thursday marked the first time that the Hamas terrorist organization has released the remains of dead hostages since its attack on Israel in October 2023. Lifshitz was married for 63 years, a father of four, journalist, and peace activist for six decades. He helped found Kibbutz Nir Oz, where he was abducted from his home on Oct. 7, 2023, along with his wife, Yocheved Lifshitz. She was released by Hamas on Oct. 24, 2023.
Shiri, Yarden, and their two children were also kidnapped from their home in Kibbutz Nir Oz. Yarden was released by Hamas on Feb. 1, and was one of the 19 living Israeli hostages freed so far as part of the Israel-Hamas ceasefire deal that took effect on Jan. 19.
The Lifshitz family released a statement on Thursday following confirmation of Oded’s death.
“We received with deep sorrow the official and bitter news confirming the identification of our beloved Oded’s body,” they said. “503 agonizing days of uncertainty have come to an end. We had hoped and prayed so much for a different outcome. Now we can mourn the husband, father, grandfather, and great-grandfather who has been missing from us since Oct. 7. Our family’s healing process will begin now and will not end until the last hostage is returned.”
Hamas paraded the bodies of the four hostages and held a public ceremony on Thursday in the Gaza Strip before handing them over to the Red Cross. On a stage, they placed the four black coffins, and each casket had a small picture of the hostages. Displayed on screen behind the caskets was a poster of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, with fangs in this mouth and blood on his face, and a picture of the Bibas family. A message on the post described Netanyahu as a “war criminal,” and accused Israel’s prime minister, his “Nazi army,” and “Zionist warplanes” of being responsible for the death of Shiri and her two sons.
Hamas claimed in November 2023 that Shiri, Ariel, and Kfir were killed in an Israeli airstrike, but Israel has never been able to confirm their deaths and Hamas never provided evidence to support its claims.
Footage from Thursday’s ceremony in Gaza showed hundreds of Palestinians in attendance, including many of whom brought children to watch the spectacle and see the transport of the dead bodies at the handover site. According to Israeli media, Hamas also locked the coffins and transferred them to Israel with keys that did not fit. Locals in Gaza additionally chased the Red Cross vehicles as they drove away from the handover site with the bodies of the hostages, as seen in video circulating on Telegram.
Hamas will release six living hostages on Saturday, in exchange for hundreds of Palestinian prisoners, as part of the ceasefire agreement.
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Iranian Media Claims Obtaining ‘Sensitive’ Israeli Intelligence Materials
FILE PHOTO: The atomic symbol and the Iranian flag are seen in this illustration, July 21, 2022. REUTERS/Dado Ruvic/Illustration/File Photo
i24 News – Iranian and Iran-affiliated media claimed on Saturday that the Islamic Republic had obtained a trove of “strategic and sensitive” Israeli intelligence materials related to Israel’s nuclear facilities and defense plans.
“Iran’s intelligence apparatus has obtained a vast quantity of strategic and sensitive information and documents belonging to the Zionist regime,” Iran’s state broadcaster said, referring to Israel in the manner accepted in those Muslim or Arab states that don’t recognize its legitimacy. The statement was also relayed by the Lebanese site Al-Mayadeen, affiliated with the Iran-backed jihadists of Hezbollah.
The reports did not include any details on the documents or how Iran had obtained them.
The intelligence reportedly included “thousands of documents related to that regime’s nuclear plans and facilities,” it added.
According to the reports, “the data haul was extracted during a covert operation and included a vast volume of materials including documents, images, and videos.”
The report comes amid high tensions over Iran’s nuclear program, over which it is in talks with the US administration of President Donald Trump.
Iranian-Israeli tensions reached an all-time high since the October 7 massacre and the subsequent Gaza war, including Iranian rocket fire on Israel and Israeli aerial raids in Iran that devastated much of the regime’s air defenses.
Israel, which regards the prospect of the antisemitic mullah regime obtaining a nuclear weapon as an existential threat, has indicated it could resort to a military strike against Iran’s installations should talks fail to curb uranium enrichment.
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Israel Retrieves Body of Thai Hostage from Gaza
Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz looks on, amid the ongoing conflict in Gaza between Israel and Hamas, in Jerusalem, Nov. 7, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Ronen Zvulun
The Israeli military has retrieved the body of a Thai hostage who had been held in Gaza since Hamas’ October 7, 2023 attack, Defense Minister Israel Katz said on Saturday.
Nattapong Pinta’s body was held by a Palestinian terrorist group called the Mujahedeen Brigades, and was recovered from the area of Rafah in southern Gaza, Katz said. His family in Thailand has been notified.
Pinta, an agricultural worker, was abducted from Kibbutz Nir Oz, a small Israeli community near the Gaza border where a quarter of the population was killed or taken hostage during the Hamas attack that triggered the devastating war in Gaza.
Israel’s military said Pinta had been abducted alive and killed by his captors, who had also killed and taken to Gaza the bodies of two more Israeli-American hostages that were retrieved earlier this week.
There was no immediate comment from the Mujahedeen Brigades, who have previously denied killing their captives, or from Hamas. The Israeli military said the Brigades were still holding the body of another foreign national. Only 20 of the 55 remaining hostages are believed to still be alive.
The Mujahedeen Brigades also held and killed Israeli hostage Shiri Bibas and her two young sons, according to Israeli authorities. Their bodies were returned during a two-month ceasefire, which collapsed in March after the two sides could not agree on terms for extending it to a second phase.
Israel has since expanded its offensive across the Gaza Strip as US, Qatari and Egyptian-led efforts to secure another ceasefire have faltered.
US-BACKED AID GROUP HALTS DISTRIBUTIONS
The United Nations has warned that most of Gaza’s 2.3 million population is at risk of famine after an 11-week Israeli blockade of the enclave, with the rate of young children suffering from acute malnutrition nearly tripling.
Aid distribution was halted on Friday after the US-and Israeli-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation said overcrowding had made it unsafe to continue operations. It was unclear whether aid had resumed on Saturday.
The GHF began distributing food packages in Gaza at the end of May, overseeing a new model of aid distribution which the United Nations says is neither impartial nor neutral. It says it has provided around 9 million meals so far.
The Israeli military said on Saturday that 350 trucks of humanitarian aid belonging to U.N. and other international relief groups were transferred this week via the Kerem Shalom crossing into Gaza.
The war erupted after Hamas-led terrorists took 251 hostages and killed 1,200 people, most of them civilians, in the October 7, 2023 attack, Israel’s single deadliest day.
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US Mulls Giving Millions to Controversial Gaza Aid Foundation, Sources Say
Palestinians carry aid supplies which they received from the US-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, in the central Gaza Strip, May 29, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Ramadan Abed/File Photo
The State Department is weighing giving $500 million to the new foundation providing aid to war-shattered Gaza, according to two knowledgeable sources and two former US officials, a move that would involve the US more deeply in a controversial aid effort that has been beset by violence and chaos.
The sources and former US officials, all of whom requested anonymity because of the sensitivity of the matter, said that money for Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) would come from the US Agency for International Development (USAID), which is being folded into the US State Department.
The plan has met resistance from some US officials concerned with the deadly shootings of Palestinians near aid distribution sites and the competence of the GHF, the two sources said.
The GHF, which has been fiercely criticized by humanitarian organizations, including the United Nations, for an alleged lack of neutrality, began distributing aid last week amid warnings that most of Gaza’s 2.3 million population is at risk of famine after an 11-week Israeli aid blockade, which was lifted on May 19 when limited deliveries were allowed to resume.
The foundation has seen senior personnel quit and had to pause handouts twice this week after crowds overwhelmed its distribution hubs.
The State Department and GHF did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Reuters has been unable to establish who is currently funding the GHF operations, which began in Gaza last week. The GHF uses private US security and logistics companies to transport aid into Gaza for distribution at so-called secure distribution sites.
On Thursday, Reuters reported that a Chicago-based private equity firm, McNally Capital, has an “economic interest” in the for-profit US contractor overseeing the logistics and security of GHF’s aid distribution hubs in the enclave.
While US President Donald Trump’s administration and Israel say they don’t finance the GHF operation, both have been pressing the United Nations and international aid groups to work with it.
The US and Israel argue that aid distributed by a long-established U.N. aid network was diverted to Hamas. Hamas has denied that.
USAID has been all but dismantled. Some 80 percent of its programs have been canceled and its staff face termination as part of President Donald Trump’s drive to align US foreign policy with his “America First” agenda.
One source with knowledge of the matter and one former senior official said the proposal to give the $500 million to GHF has been championed by acting deputy USAID Administrator Ken Jackson, who has helped oversee the agency’s dismemberment.
The source said that Israel requested the funds to underwrite GHF’s operations for 180 days.
The Israeli government did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The two sources said that some US officials have concerns with the plan because of the overcrowding that has affected the aid distribution hubs run by GHF’s contractor, and violence nearby.
Those officials also want well-established non-governmental organizations experienced in running aid operations in Gaza and elsewhere to be involved in the operation if the State Department approves the funds for GHF, a position that Israel likely will oppose, the sources said.
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